The “Madness” of Brother Xun

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This is a work of narrative nonfiction based on real events.

May 2017.

Summer had already arrived, but the weather was still neither hot nor cold.

In the center of Tilton, barely a hundred meters from the electronics district, stood my family’s old house. It was a private courtyard hidden between a small grove of trees and rows of high-rise buildings. Tucked away in a quiet lane just off the main street, it was, by any measure, a good place to live.

When you pushed open the gate, the first thing you saw was a courtyard of nearly one hundred square meters. Beside the gate was a fish pond with six koi carp. On the left stood a longan tree as tall as a three-story building. Its flowers were in full bloom that May, attracting all kinds of birds to its branches.

Under the longan tree stood a bronze sculpture of the Flying Horse of Gansu. Between the branches was an eagle sculpture, its wings spread as if ready to take flight.

Fish, dragon, horse, eagle.

They almost looked like four guardian spirits protecting this little piece of peace.

The courtyard had a large wooden table, 3.3 meters long and 1.3 meters wide.

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My Family’s Courtyard

That day’s gathering had been organized by my university classmate Gorey, an orthopedic surgeon, and his wife, Angie. Everyone coming was an old friend: Brother Xun, the charming prosecutor; his former wife, Liza, an obstetrician-gynecologist; and my junior schoolmates Chantel and her husband, Jason.

We had been close for many years — close enough that we had even bought homes right next to one another.

When we bought our apartments, I lived in Building B9. Across from me, on the fourth floor of Building B10, lived Brother Xun and Liza. On the fifth floor lived Chantel and Jason.

My son had actually been delivered by Liza herself in the delivery room.

Around that time, Brother Xun and Liza were quietly trying to get back together.

Then one day, my wife went to their apartment with some freshly bought tofu skin. Brother Xun opened the door.

My wife is a very straightforward person. She froze for a second and asked:

“Why are you here?”

Brother Xun didn’t know how to answer. He simply replied:

“You tell me.”

Everyone eventually figured out what was going on.

So we decided to give them a little push and help the two of them find their way back to each other.

There was nothing fancy on the menu that day.

I made a pot of pork-rib-and-squid soup and cooked some rice. Gorey brought abalone and mantis shrimp, which gave our simple meal a few serious dishes.

Dinner was supposed to start at around 6:30 p.m.

A little after five, Brother Xun arrived alone.

We sat around the wooden table under the longan tree and brewed a pot of tea.

After two rounds of tea, Brother Xun suddenly said, very calmly:

“I’m not having dinner tonight.”

I was surprised.

“Where are you going?”

He answered calmly:

“Beijing.”

“How are you getting there?”

“Uber.”

I thought I had misheard him.

“Uber?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at me. There was no trace of a joke on his face.

“I’ve already given an Uber driver 10,000 yuan. He’s going to drive me straight to Beijing. As for whether I’ll come back… we’ll see in two months.”

My heart sank.

Brother Xun went on to explain that the anti-corruption and anti-malfeasance departments were about to be transferred into the new supervision commission. There were still some details that the people above had not thought through.

He said he was going to “exercise the people’s rights” and offer his advice to the people at the top.

I had no idea how to respond.

Just then, Goreyand Angie walked through the gate.

They heard Brother Xun’s story about spending 10,000 yuan to travel to Beijing and personally offering advice to the people above.

Gorey shook his head.

“Brother Xun, you know better than any of us how deep the water is inside the system and how tightly the rules are written. Do you really think you can change the rules just by acting on impulse?

“Let me tell you something that happened at the Affiliated Hospital of Tilton Medical College — ”

The nineteen-year-old niece of the mayor had been hospitalized with a fracture. She was sitting in a wheelchair.

One day, Haipin Lee, the hospital’s orthopedic expert and director, received a phone call. He immediately brought Drew Chen, the deputy director and a breast surgeon, along with Gorey and several other orthopedic doctors, to the outpatient department to accompany her during the consultation.

The outpatient building was a century-old structure. At the entrance to the elevator, there was a tiny uneven step where the old building connected to the new staircase.

The wheelchair was being pushed toward the edge.

Just as it was about to bump over the uneven surface, something astonishing happened.

The deputy director, Drew Chen, a man normally regarded as a senior and powerful figure, suddenly rushed forward.

He dropped to one knee and, with both hands, literally lifted one side of the wheelchair, leveling the height difference so that the mayor’s niece could pass smoothly.

Gorey later recalled that Director Li lowered his voice and said to him:

“You see? You should learn from Deputy Director Chen. He is already a deputy director, but when it comes to the leaders’ concerns, he still pays attention to details like this.

“That is what attention to detail means.”

Sitting at the table, Gorey shook his head.

“To be honest, I can’t do that. Deputy Director Chen really has a big picture.”

Then Gorey looked at Brother Xun.

“You see? People down below can adapt to the rules and take care of details to this extent. Do you really think you can run to Beijing by yourself and point out what’s wrong with the people above?”

Brother Xun shook his head.

“Doctors have already become like this. Sigh.”

Then he looked at us.

“That makes it even more important that I go. You have to understand — prosecutors are supposed to be responsible for the law and the ordinary people. It’s completely different.”

Seeing that Gorey couldn’t persuade him, I took a sip of tea and joined the conversation.

“Brother Xun, Gorey is trying to warn you about the rules of the system. Let me tell you about a real patient I treated when I was working in neurology.

“This story is about protection.

“And it is also about a hero.”

“It was 2002.

“I once treated a 65-year-old man with a strange, extremely rare neurological illness. It was unusual enough that our whole department discussed his case for a week without reaching a diagnosis.

“He had three adopted sons. They all insisted that their father had lived an upright life, had worked as a farmer all his life, and had never married. There was no way, they said, that their father could have a ‘venereal disease.’

“But when we finally ran the tests —

“it turned out to be neurosyphilis.”

Only later did I learn that when the old man was young, he had actually served on the front line. He had two second-class military merit awards — a genuine war hero. But in his old age, one moment of carelessness about protection almost destroyed the dignity he had carried with him for his entire life.

I looked at Brother Xun.

“That old hero survived the battlefield, but because he once treated protection lightly, he almost lost his dignity in his final years.

“Brother Xun, a hero can be fearless in the face of death. But a hero cannot live without protection. You want to pursue justice — I won’t stop you. But don’t put yourself in front of the gun without any protection.”

Brother Xun sat quietly beneath the longan tree and listened.

In the end, however, he sighed.

He stood up and patted me on the shoulder.

“Anan, Gorey, I understand everything you’re saying. But I have to go.”

Then Brother Xun said goodbye to us and walked out through the gate.

The setting sun stretched his shadow long across the ground.

Less than ten minutes after Brother Xun left, the gate opened again.

Liza, Chantel, and Jason came in, happily carrying food and drinks.

Gorey looked at the empty gate, then at the three people who had just arrived.

“Oh, you’re too late! Anan just told us a great story about an old soldier and syphilis. Too bad Brother Xun heard it and still left.”

Liza sighed softly.

“Speaking of protection… I’m still working in obstetrics. The workload is so heavy. I really hope I can transfer to gynecology soon. You have no idea — every day, we see teenagers from middle school and high school coming in for abortions. When I look at those kids, it just doesn’t feel right.”

Chantel picked up the conversation.

“At the blood center today, I heard something too. They screened a high school student who had come to donate blood, and the test showed HIV. Such a young person… they just have so little respect for risk.”

The mood around the table suddenly became heavy.

Gorey poured everyone another cup of tea.

I looked at the thin smoke rising from the cups.

That evening, we had been talking about protection the whole time.

But what about Brother Xun? With 10,000 yuan in his pocket, sitting in an Uber headed straight to Beijing, wasn’t he also pushing himself into a storm with no protection?

At the time, I had no idea that Brother Xun had already taken his first step into a storm that would last for years — a storm from which there would ultimately be no way back.

Chantel tugged gently at my arm.

“Anan, why don’t you tell everyone the whole story about that old soldier?”

I looked at the smoke rising from the tea on the table.

Then I nodded.

“Okay.”

(To be continued)